Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Receipt of reports on anticipated acquisition of Telegraph Media Group

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay: I am repeating the following Written Ministerial Statement made today in the other place by my Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lucy Frazer KC MP:Today I can confirm that I have received reports from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and from Ofcom on merger situations involving Telegraph Media Group Ltd (TMG). These reports were provided in response to the Public Interest Intervention Notices (PIINs) I issued in the anticipated acquisition of TMG by RedBird IMI on 30 November 2023 and RB Investco Limited on 26 January 2024 respectively.The PIINs required the CMA to report to me on my jurisdiction to intervene in these merger situations, and if any competition concerns may arise as a consequence. They also required Ofcom to assess and report to me on the need for accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion in newspapers.Next, I will decide, in a quasi-judicial capacity, whether or not I am minded to refer this merger for a further investigation by the CMA.I will aim to publish the CMA and Ofcom reports and make a further statement on any decision I may come to as quickly as possible.In the meantime, given the ongoing quasi-judicial nature of this process, I am unable to comment substantively on the matter of this case.

Treasury

Intercepting authorised push payment fraud

Baroness Vere of Norbiton: My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasuy (Bim Afolami) has today made the following Written Ministerial Statement.The government takes the issue of fraud very seriously and is dedicated to protecting the public from this devastating crime. According to UK Finance, in the first half of 2023 alone, there were 116,324 cases of authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where a payer is deceived or defrauded into authorising a payment to a criminal.To help combat fraud, the government is working with industry to remove the vulnerabilities that fraudsters exploit, with intelligence agencies to shut down fraudulent infrastructure, with law enforcement to identify and bring the most harmful offenders to justice, and with all partners to ensure that the public have the advice and support they need.Today, the government has published draft legislation setting out its approach to allowing payment service providers to delay the processing of authorised push payments executed within the UK in sterling in circumstances where it appears there has been fraud or dishonesty. This fulfils a commitment in our ambitious Fraud Strategy to investigate this issue.Currently, for most transactions, the Payment Services Regulations 2017 require that an outbound payment is processed by the end of the business day following the time of receipt of the payment order. The draft statutory instrument published today sets out that the government intends to allow payment service providers to delay the processing of in-scope payments by up to four business days from the time of receiving the payment order. This will only be permissible where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a payment order from a payer has been placed subsequent to fraud or dishonesty perpetrated by someone else (excluding the payer) and those grounds are established by no later than the end of the next business day following receipt of the payment order. The delay may only be used where the provider requires further time to contact the customer or a third party, such as law enforcement, to establish whether to execute the payment.Payment service providers will be required to inform customers of any delays, the reasons behind their decision to delay the payment, and what information or actions are needed to help the payment service provider decide whether to execute the order. However, this will not be required when doing so would be unlawful, for example, when doing so will contravene obligations under anti-money laundering or economic crime law.The thresholds for any delay will ensure that payment service providers must have an evidential basis to delay a payment, whilst ensuring that suspicious payments are properly investigated and rejected as required. To help ensure that consumers and businesses do not incur any costs as a result of any delays to their payments, payment service providers will be liable for any interest or charges incurred by the payer resulting from a delay.This measure only applies to authorised push payments executed within the UK in sterling. Small, medium, and large businesses, which may have numerous obligations to make timely payments to suppliers, will be able to opt out of these provisions with the mutual agreement of their payment service provider.To monitor the impact of this legislation and ensure it is used in a proportionate manner, the FCA will engage with payment service providers over reporting requirements in respect of compliance with the new provisions.This legislation does not make any changes to the Payment Services Regulations 2017 with regard to inbound payments, whereby a payment service provider receives a payment from another payment service provider. This is because there are already obligations under financial crime legislation for payment service providers to delay inbound payments in certain circumstances. Therefore, the government considers that legislative change for inbound payments is not required.The government welcomes feedback on the drafting of this SI by 12 April 2024 and will engage with the financial services industry on this. The Government will then lay these regulations before Parliament in summer 2024. It is intended that these regulations will come into force by 7 October 2024 to align with the Payment Systems Regulator’s timelines for the introduction of mandatory reimbursement for APP scams.The draft legislation and an accompanying policy note can be found at the below link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-payment-services-amendment-regulations-2024-policy-note

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

REMA Second Consultation

Lord Callanan: My Right Honourable Friend, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho MP) has today made the following statement:After a period of unprecedented disruption and change, our energy sector is now poised to seize the opportunities of the energy transition. We have become the first major economy in the world to halve our emissions, and today we are seeking to build on that progress with the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA) second consultation. The options in this consultation could save consumers tens of billions of pounds. It will ensure our electricity markets are fit for the future, and to prepare our electricity system for full decarbonisation by 2035, subject to security of supply. Reforming the electricity market is key to delivering a low-cost system, driving down both the cost of power itself and the infrastructure needed to deliver it to consumers. The first REMA consultation sought views on the case for change, programme objectives, and a wide range of options. This consultation sets out a much sharper vision for our future electricity market arrangements, significantly narrowing down the remaining options. The reform options in this consultation have the potential to save tens of billions of pounds from consumer’s bills. Doing nothing is not an option. Existing arrangements will get harder to operate and could lock in a high-cost path to transition. Our analysis suggests that reforming our electricity markets could reduce overall system costs by £35 billion from 2030 to 2050. This is also an opportunity to unlock massive investment in a cost-effective and secure energy system. An estimated £275-375 billion in new capacity may be required. Achieving this will require the private sector to work alongside government, the regulator, and the system operator to help design future markets to encourage large-scale investment. We are also taking the steps necessary to futureproof the country’s energy security and keep the lights on. With electricity demand set to rise and existing gas plants nearing the end of their lives, the government will support limited newbuild gas capacity in the short-term for when the sun isn’t shining, and the wind isn’t blowing. This is a sensible insurance policy and independent analysis demonstrates that unabated gas generation will continue to play an important part in the 2030s. The government has already passed laws requiring new gas plants to be built ready to convert to low carbon alternatives in the future, and running hours will continue to reduce as more renewables come online. This means the plans will not add to projected emissions and are entirely in line with the UK’s world-leading carbon targets. The next phase of the REMA programme will finalise the remaining policy options. We expect to provide a summary of responses in summer 2024 and move into full-scale implementation from 2025.

Ministry of Justice

Update on Foreign National Offenders, Prisons and Probation

Lord Bellamy: My Right Honourable Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has made the following statement:"Our plan to cut crime and keep the public safe is working. Violent and neighbourhood crime have reduced by over 50% since 2010, and the reoffending rate is down from 31% to 25%. We are locking up more criminals for longer: over the past decade, the average time offenders spend behind bars increased by more than 40% and rapists now go to prison for nearly 3 years longer, on average, than in 2010. We have already ended Labour’s automatic halfway release for serious sexual and violent offenders so they will serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars. We are currently legislating so that rapists serve the full custodial part of their sentence behind bars and to ensure that life means life for the most horrific murderers.We will always ensure we have sufficient prison capacity in order to lock up the most serious and dangerous offenders. We are on track to deliver 10,000 new prison places by the end of 2025 and have a long-term commitment to build 20,000 new prison places overall, the largest prison building programme since the Victorian era. In addition, we are doubling up cells where safe to do so.We need to go further to ensure we can continue locking up serious and violent offenders for longer. The number of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) has increased over recent years and now makes up over 10,000 (c.12%) of prisoners in England and Wales, at an average cost to the taxpayer of £50,000 per year and reducing the capacity of the prison system. These are people who should be removed back to their own countries of origin wherever possible. We have made progress: last year the Government returned nearly 4,000 FNOs from prison and the community – a 27% increase compared to the year before.In January, the Government extended the Early Removal Scheme from a maximum period of 12 months to 18 months – so eligible FNOs can be deported up to 6 months earlier. Almost 400 FNOs have already been removed from the UK via this scheme since January – a 61% increase compared to the equivalent period a year earlier. We have also signed a robust new agreement with Albania which has restarted transfers of Albanian FNOs; and we are legislating in the Criminal Justice Bill to enable prisoners to be transferred and held in rented prisons overseas, as several EU countries have done.We must now build on this progress by ensuring that even more FNOs are removed from the country as quickly as possible and spurious barriers to removal are quickly dismissed.So, we will:Radically change the way we process FNO cases – we have created a new taskforce across the HO and MoJ – including the prison service, immigration enforcement and asylum and modern slavery teams, surging 400 additional caseworkers to prioritise these cases who will all be in place by the end of March and streamlining the end-to-end removal process.Expedite prisoner transfers with our priority countries such as Albania and conclude new transfer agreements with partner countries such as Italy.Be fully prepared to make use of the powers provided under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to restrict visas for any country where no progress on Foreign National Offender removals can be made.Amend our existing deportation policy to enable Foreign National Offenders given suspended sentences of 6 months or more to be considered for deportation under the Immigration Act 1971 on the ground it is conducive to the public good, enabling us to remove more Foreign National Offenders from the country.Bring forward an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to extend foreign national conditional cautions to Foreign National Offenders with limited leave. Currently, this type of caution can only be given to Foreign National Offenders who do not have leave to enter or leave to remain in the UK, enabling us to remove more Foreign National Offenders from the country.This will allow us to return almost double the number of FNOs directly from prison in 2024 – compared to 1,800 last year and more returns of FNOs from prison than in any year since 2010, saving the taxpayer millions of pounds and keeping our streets safe.We must also address the unsustainable growth in the remand population since the pandemic and Criminal Bar Association action. Since 2019, the remand population has increased by over 6,000 to more than 16,000 today, in part because we made the right decision for public protection and did not release tens of thousands of prisoners at the start of the pandemic, as many other countries did. We also made the right decision for access to justice and refused calls to scrap trial by jury. This has placed additional pressure on the prison estate and on the criminal justice system as a whole. The Lady Chief Justice has confirmed that if bail applications are made to the magistrates’ court or renewed before the Crown Court, the courts remain ready to hear them within the short time limits provided for in the Criminal Procedure Rules. We are also exploring at pace with the senior judiciary the rollout of a remote nationwide pilot Crown Court capable of hearing new bail applications. The pilot would monitor whether these additional measures result in an increase in the use of tagging and appropriate support packages in bail applications.In order to support this, the Government will invest £53m additional funding to expand the Bail Information Service – part of the productivity package the Chancellor announced at the Budget. This will enable our court system to be more efficient by increasing the court-based staff and digital systems that can provide critical information to the judiciary – making the bail process more efficient. To support this work a further £22m of additional funding will be available in 2024/25 to fund community accommodation.We will also increase awareness about the availability of tags, especially high tech GPS and alcohol monitoring tags, to ensure that offenders can be monitored in the community.We will also extend the existing end of custody supervised licence measure to around 35-60 days. We will enable this to happen, for a time limited period, and work with the police, prisons and probation leaders to make further adjustments as required. This will only be for certain low level offenders. Where necessary, electronic monitoring will be applied, enhancing public protection. Ministers will continue to keep use of this measure under review.These measures all rely on a probation service that can focus its attention on the most critical points of the justice system – especially when an offender is first released from prison. In 2021 the Government created the unified Probation Service, which brought together all of probation into a single national organisation. We have invested £155 million of extra funding each year in the Service and onboarded over 4,000 trainee probation officers since then. That is why we will be taking steps to refocus probation practice on the points that matter most to public protection and reducing offending.From April, we will reset probation so that practitioners prioritise early engagement at the point where offenders are most likely to breach their licence conditions, allowing frontline staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders. Similarly, for those managed on Community Orders and Suspended Sentence Orders, probation practitioners will ensure intervention and engagement is prioritised towards the first two-thirds of the sentence, as experience shows that this most effectively rehabilitates offenders.We express our deep gratitude for the efforts of all those working in the Criminal Justice System: prisons, probation and courts staff, the police, prosecutors and lawyers, and the Judiciary. They deserve credit for their enormous commitment and professionalism in their vital work to keep the country safe."